A selection of writings, speeches, photographs and events as well as some of my favourite literary passages.

Friday, 11 September 2009

How to Draw

Camellia by Masumi Yamanaka for the RHS

To lean to draw a flower, it is best to place a blossoming plant in a deep hollow in the ground and to look upon it. The all its qualities may be grasped. To learn to draw a bamboo, take a branch and cast its shadow upon a white wall on a moonlight night; then its true outline can be obtained. To learn to paint a landscape too, the method is the same. An artist should identify himself with the landscape and watch it until its significance is revealed to him.

Kuo Hsi, a painter of the Sung Period (AD1000)

This reminds me: 'What is a lovely phrase? One that has mopped up as much truth as it can hold.'

No medium has yet been devised for the translation of life into language, nor can any words recall the dazzling fluidity of days. Single yet fixed in sequence, they fall like the shaft of a cataract into time and through it.